Friday, September 6, 2024
This week, the Maori people of New Zealand anointed their eighth monarch, Nga Wai Hono i te Po, 27, in the town of Ngāruawāhia on the country’s North Island. The ceremony was combined with funeral rites for the previous monarch, King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, 69, and father of the current queen.
The previous monarch, King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, 69, died last week during [heart surgery]. He had been king for eighteen years.
Kuini, or Queen, Nga Wai Hono i te Po is the youngest of the previous king’s three children. Maori do not practice the primogeniture common in European monarchies. Instead, a council of chiefs chooses the new ruler, who is not required to be a child of the previous one.
The coronation ceremony overlapped with funeral rites for the new queen’s late father. After an archbishop anointed her with oil, she took her place on a wooden throne next to Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero’s coffin, which was covered in feather cloaks. After the ceremony, the coffin was transported up the Waikato River to the royal burial site at Mount Taupiri, surrounded by an honor guard of waka, or war canoes. The mourning period for Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero lasted seven days instead of the usual three because of the tens of thousands of people who came to pay their respects to him and to the new queen.
King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero worked as a truck driver before succeeding his own mother as monarch, but Nga Wai Hono i te Po prepared and was prepared for the role. She has been an advocate for Maori culture for many years. She earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Waikato and holds a master’s in Tikanga Maori, or Maori cultural practices. She has served on the board of the language advocacy agency W:Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust and as a young woman taught haka, which is a Maori dance. Mourners performed a haka to honor Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero as his coffin was rowed away.
In recent years, Nga Wai Hono i te Po accompanied her father on his official duties and represented him in a visit to England, where she met with Charles Windsor, then the Prince of Wales.
Officially, because New Zealand is part of the British Commonwealth, its king is King Charles III of England. Queen Nga Wai Hono i te Po’s role is largely ceremonial.
Nga Wai Hono i te Po is the second female ruler of the Maori. The first, Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, reigned from 1966 to 2006. She was Nga Wai Hono i te Po’s grandmother.
Last year, King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero called a nearly unprecedented inter-tribal meeting to discuss pushback against Maori culture in the country. About 10,000 people attended. “The best protest we can make right now is being Māori. Be who we are. Live our values. Speak our reo [language],” he said. “Just be Māori. Be Māori all day, every day. We are here. We are strong.”
The Maori began choosing a single king for their entire community in 1858 as a means of pushing back against marginalization by British settlers. During the past few years, New Zealand’s current government has seen criticism for rolling back laws that protected indigenous New Zealanders, attempting to close the Māori Health Authority, and reducing the use of the Maori language by the government.
